Welsh homelessness charity appoints new chief executive

Her previous roles include chief executive of The Care Collective and she has senior leadership experience for organisations such as the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and the National Association of Disability Practitioners.

On her new role, Ms Robson said: “I can already see from the outside the ways in which The Wallich is changing lives for the better through the charity’s mission and values – which I feel incredibly passionate about. From the inside, I believe I can be an asset to the organisation and I cannot wait to get stuck in.”

In 2018, Ms Robson was part of a team awarded the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, the highest award for voluntary groups in the UK.

She also has experience as a panel member and as part of advisory boards working with the UK and Welsh governments advocating for marginalised and under-represented groups.

Established in 1978, The Wallich has worked with 8,306 people who experienced homelessness, risk of homelessness or financial hardship in 2023-24 across Wales. 

Ms Robson will oversee 132 homelessness and prevention services across 21 of the 22 Welsh local authorities.

Oliver Townsend, chair of The Wallich’s trustee board, said: “We appointed Karen from a highly competitive field of candidates, and are very excited about the future with our new chief executive.

“We saw in Karen a real understanding of the need to build on what our organisation is good at – working across Wales, with people who are facing some of the most entrenched inequality and injustice we can imagine. That is where The Wallich is so needed, working with people that society has – far too often – given up on.”

At the end of last week, a new report claimed that the Welsh government is likely to miss its target of delivering 20,000 low-carbon homes “without significant additional spending”.

Audit Wales, the body responsible for making sure public money is managed well, said there were “not quite enough pipeline schemes” currently in place to meet the target by March 2026, and that some of these were “considered risky”.

The Welsh government pledged to build 20,000 new low-carbon social homes for rent by March 2026, but the report found that delivery so far had been “slow and more expensive than initially expected”.

When she was cabinet secretary for housing, local government and planning, Julie James admitted earlier this year that the government was hanging on to the target “by the skin of our teeth”.

Jayne Bryant was appointed as Ms James’ successor after she resigned over first minister Vaughan Gething’s continued leadership. He stepped down in August.